Hah, well, I've now crossed something off my bucket list. I managed to get on with Jason and Ben on their Monster Hunter World stream this afternoon that just ended (I was "Keigo Onishi," a character name I ripped from an anime called Texhnolyze). We beat the Anjanath quest together, then went to Wildspire Waste and managed to slay Diablos with only a minute remaining. Very cool. And neat that I can now point to a Giant Bomb video and say "Hey! That's meeee! Woo-hoo!" I am immortalized! :-D

The combat, more so the melee, felt hollow like a MMO, maybe it is a MMO or MMOish, I don't know. I didn't do multiplayer since the matchmaking wasn't working earlier. I was swinging away at huge monsters with a weapon that's bigger than my character and it still felt like I wasn't really hitting anything...

The melee system feeling off was major reason why the game doesn't click for me. Similarly, the last two Battlefront games shooting felt off, like I was just shooting skittles or paintballs, so I didn't like those games either.

I think I get what you're saying about feeling "hollow" or "like you're not really hitting anything." I think a lot of that actually comes down to the sound design, which IMO isn't great, much as I love these games... the sound that happens when you hit a monster is all wrong.

-Normal time limit for a mission in the full retail game is 50 minutes, not 20. Still a limit, but not usually one that matters. Also, there is a mode in the retail game where you have no specific target, and no time limit, if that's your bag.-Yes, the retail game will have full character creation/editing. The 6 male/female/cat presets are just a demo limitation.

The combat feel thing is, of course, very subjective. I like it, but I've loved these game since 2011, so I ain't exactly unbiased. But there's certainly a lot of depth there. The weapons are very different. My first of piece of advice to anyone trying the game for the first time is to go into training and figure out which weapon you like the feel of before doing anything else. But I see you've done that already.

Oh well. It won't be for everyone. Though I do selfishly hope that this thing sells well, because I really want them to keep making these games!